Monday, September 16, 2013

By now, a lot of you are aware of a vile book coming out in October which will smear Matthew Shepard's name.

Openly gay author, Stephen Jimenez, is claiming that not only was Shepard's murder the result of a drug deal rather than because of anti-gay bias, but also Shepard and one of his murderers, Aaron McKinney, were lovers.

You can practically hear the religious right squealing and the concern trolls on our side of the spectrum rising up to defend this piece of hokum, even though Jimenez makes these assertions without an ounce of concrete evidence.

So it is again that I say THANK YOU to watchdog group Media Matters who reveals several facts about Jimenez's work which the religious right will deliberately omit and the mainstream media will probably accidentally omit.

I'm just going to give you some pertinent parts:

Right-wing media outlets are already celebrating a forthcoming book
that claims that brutal 1998 murder of gay Wyoming teen Matthew Shepard -
which became a rallying cry for LGBT activists - was actually fueled
more by drug use than anti-gay bias.

In The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard,
journalist Stephen Jimenez argues that Aaron McKinney and Russell
Henderson bludgeoned Shepard in a meth-fueled rage. Jimenez minimizes
the role of anti-gay bias in the murder, writing that Shepard and
McKinney had previously had sex and done meth together (an assertion that McKinney himself denies).

Although his report of a sexual history between Shepard and McKinney
is new, Jimenez's central thesis - that drugs were the motivating factor
in Shepard's murder - has been called into question before.

In November 2004, Jimenez co-produced a piece on the Shepard murder for ABC News' 20/20. GLAAD highlighted key shortcomings in 20/20's
report, including the lack of hard evidence that drugs were a factor
and its failure to point out that McKinney himself had cited ant-gay
bias as a central element in the case, even attempting to employ a "gay panic" defense at trial. Shepard's mother also condemned the report, criticizing its selective reading of evidence and accusing ABC of taking her comments out of context.

Most disturbingly, email correspondence revealed that the Jimenez had already decided that Shepard's murder wasn't an anti-gay hate crime before 20/20 even started its reporting. As Gay City News reported in December 2004:

Roughly two months before reporting began for a "20/20" piece
on the Matthew Shepard killing, [Stephen Jimenez,] the freelance
producer who sold the story to the ABC program had decided that
methamphetamine motivated the murder and not anti-gay bias.

And barely two months into a six-month span of reporting on the
piece, a "20/20" producer wrote in an e-mail that the "'hate crime'
motivation of Shepard's death" was a "flawed theory."

Sean Maloney, a senior attorney at Willkie, Farr and Gallagher who
represents the Matthew Shepard Foundation, said of "20/20"'s apparent
prejudgment of the story, "This strikes us as bad journalism.
There is a significant body of evidence that says that anti-gay bias
played a role in Matt's death."

The November 26 story said that Aaron McKinney who, along with
Russell Henderson, murdered Shepard on October 6, 1998 was fueled by
meth. [emphasis added]

Media Matters goes on to detail the number of religious right groups and spokespeople who are now exploiting Jimenez's book to demonize the lgbt community at large.

I dare anyone to give me any crap about this book being written because of a "need to get the truth told."

It's about money, pure and simple. And a group of hateful folks masquerading as Christians eager to besmirch the memory of a young man who cannot defend himself.

Let me give you the gist of the story via the words of FRC's Peter Sprigg:

Air Force Senior Master Sergeant Phillip Monk told Todd Starnes of
Fox News Radio that his openly lesbian commander at Lackland Air Force
Base in San Antonio,Texas had essentially forced him into taking leave
rather than completing his assignment. (A Lackland spokesman denied that
Monk was punished, insisting to Starnes that he was simply at the end
of his assignment.)

Monk was caught in the middle of a situation which involved an
instructor who was subjected to an investigation for having told
trainees that he opposed homosexual "marriage." Investigators sought to
determine whether the unnamed instructor had slandered homosexuals and
created a "hostile work environment."

Monk's job was to advise the commander on disciplinary action.
According to Monk, however, the commander said from the outset that "we
need to lop off the head of this guy." Monk concluded that the
instructor's remarks were innocuous, and suggested instead that the
incident could teach everyone - on both sides of the debate over
homosexuality - about "tolerance" and "diversity."

In the end, the instructor was disciplined with a "letter of
counseling" in his official file. The commander, however, demanded to
know from Monk "if you can see discrimination if somebody says that they
don't agree with homosexual marriage." Monk refused to answer because,
"As a matter of conscience I could not answer the question the way the
commander wanted me to." Instead, he "said that perhaps it would be best
if he went on leave," and the commander agreed.

Monk said to Starnes, "I'm told that members of the Air Force don't
have freedom of speech. They don't have the right to say anything that
goes against Air Force policy." However, if the homosexual Air Force
officer involved in this case thinks that "Air Force policy" requires
rejecting the policy choice of three quarters of the States to define
marriage as the union of one man and one woman, she should think again.

Try as Starnes might to depict the investigation of Monk as an
all-out assault on conservative Christians in the military, it's clear
that Monk's harsh words for his Air Force superiors may well have
breached military regulations on soldiers' conduct. Article 134 of
the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits soldiers from engaging
in speech or actions "of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed
forces." Going to the media with unfounded allegations that the Air
Force is retaliating against Christians would likely merit an
investigation under Article 134.

But Starnes asserted that Monk's case indicates widespread punishment
of Christians in the military. Alas, this claim is based on nothing
more than hearsay. An attorney for the Liberty Institute - which has a history of pushing trumped-up, unfounded "religious liberty" cases -
told Starnes that "there must be some sort of systemic problem in the
Air Force," while a local pastor told Starnes that he "hear[s] it
every Sunday at church" that life at Lackland is becoming "difficult"
for Christians.

And according to Media Matters, who reported on the situation and the fact that the Liberty Counsel is taking up Monk's case:

While Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk claims his anti-marriage equality
views led him to be relieved of his duties, there's no evidence, besides
the sensationalistic coverage of far-right news outlets,
that that's actually the case. After devoting four minutes to touting
the Liberty Institute's claims, Bream briskly noted that officials at
Lackland Air Force Base said Monk was at the end of his assignment. A
spokesperson for the base told Fox
News Radio's Todd Starnes that while Monk and his lesbian commander did
disagree on marriage equality, they "agreed to disagree," adding "the
wing commander said there was no punishment."

The one constant in this strange is how the narrative of anti-Christian is being driven by the religious right and conservatives. According to Todd Starnes of Fox News, Monk is now being brought up on charges for repeating his tale.

Of course the irony of Starnes' story is while the headlines pushes the idea that Christians are being persecuted in the military, it doesn't even look like Starnes even tried to get the Air Force's side of the story.

Why should we be surprised at how conservatives and the religious right are pushing this story? It's a formula we have seen before - take a potential controversy, report on it in a half-assed way, bombard the media with the side of the story you support, and finally take your victory before the truth even has a chance to put on its track shoes.

For folks to engage in this scurrilous propaganda is one thing, but for those who claim to be Christians while engaging in this underhanded tactic is positively nauseating.

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.